The Effects of Accession to the European Union for the Competitiveness of Polish Service Sectors

Abstract

The share of services in Polish economy is increasing. They account for the prevailing portion of GDP and employment, they attract most of foreign direct investments located in Poland. Services are also increasingly internationalized: due to technological progress and intensification of interrelations in world economy, their share in international trade is rising. The aim of the paper is to analyze current tendencies in trade in services between Poland and the European Union countries and to indicate changes in competitiveness of service sectors in Poland after accession to EU. There should be a statistical evidence of increased specialization in services trade, as service enterprises can benefit from the freedom to provide services in the European Union markets. Measures used to assess Polish competitive position in services trade with EU countries are: revealed comparative advantage (RCA) index, and Grubel-Lloyd index measuring the level of intra-industry trade. The paper is organized as follows: introduction to the subject, presentation of the measures of the country’s competitiveness used in the research, presentation of the facts concerning services trade flows between Poland and EU countries and finally empirical results of the survey.